7 weeks out

7 weeks out from my surgery. I still spend most of my days sitting in my la-z-boy recliner. It sucks.
I am  having my second period and it increases my pain so much. Cramps and a spinal fusion are not a good combination! I want to curl into a ball and cry. But I can't. I can't even take anything for it at the moment because I have to pick Gwen up from school later.
I should be walking more than I am, I wish I could. But it keeps being cold and I just want to sit in my chair under blankets.
Our bed causes me pain. I wake up hurting if I sleep in bed, but if I sleep on the couch I wake up in no pain. I hate it. I'm trying to remove my mattress topper tonight to see if that helps. I really hope it does because I don't like being in pain (who does, that's a stupid thing to write.)

My brain feels like mush most days. I sit here wishing for someone to talk to, but I have nothing to say. I have time to write, but words aren't flowing. I gave way too much time to think and no energy to do anything that would be helpful. I can do a load of laundry but then I'm done. Today I made bread and cleaned a toilet, because I'm already in pain I figured it wouldn't hurt me more.

Everything is out of hand in the house. Messes and dirt and clutter.

The tv is always on. But I don't really watch it. I'm watching Charmed, just because I need something on and I don't really have to watch it every second. I stare at the messes and wish I could clean.

I should be starting physical therapy soon. I hope. It'll at least give me something I can do. I'll try and stretch my legs, my muscles are so tight and everything is uncomfortable.

I can not say this is worth it yet. In fact, so far it's been the  opposite. This has to be the hardest thing physically I've ever done.

Surgery

I am seriously considering surgery to  "fix" my back. I recently had a follow up MRI to check my slippage. Since April 2017 my L5  has moved and I know I'm having more pain. And it looks like L4 might be moving as well.

Today I was cooking dinner, I had been standing up in the kitchen for 30 minutes and suddenly it felt like the outside of my right leg was covered in goose bumps (there were none!) That was 3 hours ago and my leg still feels wrong. I keep having strange sensations up and down it. I took a hot bath hoping for relief, but even while I was in there I could feel the nerve pain, like pouring  burning coffee down my leg.

Ever since I read my MRI results I've been feeling so afraid. I was sort of ok before that. But I feel depressed and miserable.

I know Will is 100% supportive of surgery because he knows I don't make these choices lightly, and he had known people who've had similar life altering surgeries with excellent results.

But I'm afraid, still. It is surgery. It isn't a guaranteed fix. My Dr said I have an  80% chance of relief because my pain is mostly nerve pain. And there is a long recovery period. That's scary.

But feeling like this for the rest of my life is scary, too. I said if there was changes in the MRI I would really look into surgery, because what's the likelihood it will continue to get worse? How likely am I to eventually get to the point of not being able to walk more than 5 minutes?

Making this choice is difficult. I wish there was a sure fire way to make the right one. But I'll spend the next month researching.

Pars Defect

It's been nearly a year since I posted. I'm still dealing with daily back pain. I'm tired, and every part of me is distracting because of it.

The only thing that isn't suffering, is my marriage. We've renewed our love for one another and things have never been better. But I digress.

I have a pars defect, a place where I either had a birth defect or a break in my lower vertebrae, that was ok, until I started running. The jarring motion caused me pain in my back and numbness in the nerves running down my right leg. So I've seen multiple doctors about it and had many scans. I'm going in for another MRI soon, so see if there is any change from the one i had on April of 2017.

I have three choices at this point-
1. Live with the pain, and be very careful.
2. Pain management (medicines that can help block the nerve pain).
3. Surgery- a fusion of the L5-S1 vertebra.

I've been living with the pain for 18 months now. It's depressing,  I want to be active but I have to be really careful, and I CAN NOT, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES- RUN. Because every time I do it flares and takes weeks to get back to me being able to move without pain and without having that shooting burning, numb, weird nerve pain.

I am reluctant to try pain management. I researched it and anti depressants are commonly used to treat nerve pain, or anti convulsants.  Or opioids to dull the pain. I have Tylenol 3, from my bunion surgery, it does little to relieve any pain. Neither does tramadol (another narcotic that I have from the very beginning of this, it was prescribed by my primary care doctor the first time I went in for back pain.)

Surgery.....
Terrifying. Mainly because the doctor said that if I choose surgery, it will cause the vertebrae above the fusion to start taking on the impact and they will wear out faster, increasing my likelihood of needing further surgeries by 10-20% in the future. Plus, surgery hurts, an the recovery would not be fun. But it was a high rate of success since my main complaint is the nerve pain.

I'm waiting to make any concrete choices until my  MRI. If there of any measurable change, then surgery is an easy answer. I don't want this to get worse! But if it's exactly the same, maybe I can live with it, at least for another year. At which point Bee will be in 1st grade and I won't need to meet her at the bus stop every day.

I wish there was an easy answer. I had hoped that  wearing a brace would help (no) the epidural steroid shots would help (minimally, but they also have side effects that I didn't like), it would go away on its own (I've had issues go away before!) Alas, none of those are really the answer.

So, I keep waiting, like I've been doing for 18 months.